Great News:

HB165, the ASL for Foreign Language Credit bill, passed the House of
Representatives this afternoon by a vote of 96 – 0. There were 75
co-sponsors of this bill. It now goes the Senate where the process
starts over again.

The vote was especially gratifying coming on heels of an unfortunate
letter from Dr. Joseph Morton, the State Superintendent of Education
that was delivered to the Legislators late last week. In this
letter, written in response to a private letter from Judith Gilliam,
AAD President, Dr Morton again said he opposed the bill as it was
written. He does not support allowing hearing people to study ASL
for foreign language credit, although he did say that he was not
opposed to allowing deaf people to get credit for studying ASL. This
is rather like saying only Hispanic people can get credit for
studying Spanish. While people are certainly entitled to have
opinions, the original letter from Ms. Gilliam was sent only to Dr.
Morton, not distributed to anyone else. His response, which implied
several things that were not true, was sent out publicly, even before
Ms. Gilliam received her own copy.

Representative Craig Ford, of Etowah County, was very unhappy with
this tactic and passed out copies of all the letters, including Ms.
Gilliam's original letter, Dr. Morton's response, and Ms. Gilliam's
response. If Dr. Morton had intended his letter to be persuasive to
the Legislature, it was apparently a miscalculation.

The normally raucous floor of the House become quiet as all present
paid full attention to Representative Ford's presentation. He was
followed by strongly supportive comments from Representative Jamie
Ison, of Mobile, and Representative Steve Furst of Talladega. Both
spoke strongly in favor. When the vote was called, a rousing cheer
arose from the gallery.

In attendance were Judith Gilliam, AAD President, American Deafness
and Steve Hamerdinger, Rehabilitation President-Elect. Charlene
Crump and Deb Walker were the interpreters at the House of
Representatives today. Also present were Pam Shaw, Principal of the
Alabama School for the Deaf, Lynne Hayes, Assistant Principal, Tammy
Adams, State Coordinator for Deaf/Hard of Hearing Services at ADRS
and Belinda Montgomery, State Coordinator of Interpreter Services for
ADRS

Now the HB165 will go to the Senate for committee hearings and vote.
The process will be very similar to what happened on the house side.
Advocates will need to write letters of support to their Senators.
To find your senator, go to
http://www.legislature.state.al.us./misc/zipsearch.html and search
for the appropriate Senator. More information will follow in the
next couple of days.